Thursday, police released video of a man identified as a “possible suspect in these cases.” They released two versions of the video: at regular speed (above) and slowed down (below).

The suspect was described as a black or East Indian man in his early 20s, 5 foot 9 inches to 6 feet tall, with dark curly hair or dreadlocks pulled back, wearing a dark-colored jacket and pants, and a hooded sweatshirt.

Tuesday night, at about 11 p.m., a second woman was assaulted near Durant Avenue and Ellsworth Street. (Police had not previously released any information about this incident, and included no further details.)

About 20 minutes later, a third woman was assaulted nearby, in the 2500 block of Benvenue Street. According to a statement released Thursday by UCPD, the man approached her from behind and “used a bear hug to restrain” her, “and then sexually assaulted her.” In that incident, the victim chased the suspect through UC Berkeley’s Unit 2 parking lot, and he was last seen running west on Haste.

“BPD is sharing this suspect description, and a video of a possible suspect, in an effort to identify the suspect and protect the community,” according to the statement. “In addition, BPD is sharing information with the University of California Police Department.”

Police ask anyone with information regarding these assaults to call the BPD Special Victims Unit at 510-981-5735. For crimes in progress, call 911. Callers who wish to remain anonymous can call Bay Area Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.

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Don Aks

Here’s where our ability to talk about race and ethnicity falls apart for lack of a useful language to convey our ideas. Clearly religious identity is not the relevant detail here, but you are being overly dismissive of the point they are trying to make. (BTW, Hindi is a language, Hindu is a religion.)

There are lots of visual traits that are hereditary, and to the extent that people are physically or socially isolated those traits can be reasonably observed to be coincident with the causal and proximal factors associated with that isolation. For example, descendants of people who are native of sub-Saharan Africa tend to have dark skin, and the concentration of folks with the genes for red hair is much higher in the British Isles than elsewhere in the world.

“Jewish” refers to a religion as well as adherents of same. For a number of reasons (topic for another day) groups of Jews around the world have been socially isolated for long periods of time, and migrated as a group from one place to another. Not surprisingly there are some hereditary physical traits that are associated with these folks,( e.g. high incidence of blue eyes among some Sephardics from Eastern Europe.)

Do all Jews have blue eyes? No. Are all blue-eyed people Jewish? No. In combination can one occasionally recognize a person as a partial descendant of this or some other group based on physical features? Of course.

Anybody But Jesse

Do you teach religious stereotypes to schoolchildren?

Anybody But Jesse

You do not need to invoke religious identity in describing appearance. Try your experiment with Catholic, Hindi, and Lutheran and see how little information it adds. You and Britt are just trafficking in stereotypes.

paxallen1067

A few years ago, and possibly still, the SFPD ran a stung, using an undercover Asian cop as a decoy. Find out how it worked?..Oh, re safety tips: I’m a man; who would expect a man to screammmm? No charge.

Jason T

He isn’t assuming anything, its a fact that in America Jews commit far fewer crimes. Additionally, you are ignoring the victim'(s) own description of the suspect as black or east Indian, in favor of your PC interpretation based on low resolution, high contrast image.

It is actually YOU that are making the assumption that the victim(s) descriptions of this guy are wrong.

djoelt1

Agreed. You can see the fringes of his tallit clearly at 0:12 in the video. Good sleuthing!

Anybody But Jesse

What does a Jewish person look like? How do you distinguish one from an Eastern European Catholic or Protestant or orthodox?

NTEL

Yes, and to avoid potential legal troubles (it’s a shame that our legal system could protect a perpetrator by giving him “victim” status) a knife might be used to protect oneself for fear of one’s life, rather than just “self defense”. Also, use the pepper spray or other facsimile rather than Bear spray or Insect repellent which can be considered “poisons”.

From Paladin at calguns.net: “Do NOT carry bear spray or insect spray since those are classified as
poisons and you may be charged with “assault with a deadly weapon” or
worse (attempted poisoning)”.

Pretty distinctive hair & beard. Expect both to be gone after he sees this. But somebody should recognize him.

laura

The list of safety tips left out be prepared carry pepper spray, taser, whistle and/or knife.

Britt Badgley Alamo

oh, Doug. You have such a high rate of assumption.

lodule16

Keeps his left hand in his coat pocket throughout the entire clip while running pretty fast. If he’s holding a weapon, the police probably know about it. Doesn’t look undernourished, either.

Doug F

Oh yeah, those Eastern European Jews have such a high rate of violent street crime…

Britt Badgley Alamo

He could also be Eastern European/Jewish in my mind. Just saying- we need to cover all bases. He was lighter in skin tone than I would think to be deemed black. But go broad. Get this guy!!

Hermann Gunther Hidalgo Haller

Is there any still frame that is higher resolution that is available? The video is really unclear. I am guessing that the officers didn’t go to every home and establishment near the incident. I live on that block of benvenue and had to read the news here. I am going to check and see if any neighbors have external CCTV. I am also going to try and place more light street side. This news is shocking and I am surprised the student community isn’t in more of an uproar over the incident!